Guild Wars 2

I’d rather be downed, then outright defeated. Downed is more forgiving to new players…

This game should just add a tutorial and be done with it.

Incredibly pointless change. The story will suck anyways and the only good part is at the beginning.

Good thing I have level 20 scrolls…

Contact Arenanet directly about this, please. Nothing good can happen about making it public. People who don’t know about it will start doing it.

And yes, I think failure should result in longer reset times.

That’s fine with me. But BL keys themselves have to be a bit easier to find. I mean there’s a reason why people keyfarm.

Yea, I don’t think that’s low power— that’s borderline full zerker with some knights. :O, if anything the 40ish% crit chance makes up for it.

It’s not squishy but you may have trouble in protracted fights since you don’t have much in the name of sustain. Personally, I’d move 2 from virtues into valor to take AH and let purging flames be condi removal but I really like PF so that may not be for everyone.

I would ditch the signet for shelter as a better block, and replace hallowed ground with something (maybe purging flames)— it’s not so hot in mobile fights.

I would dispute that zealot is the best gear for wvw. Soldier is better for zerg play, and dps builds don’t make good use of healing power.

It looks like a gear set meant to be mixed in with other pieces. You wouldn’t want to go pure zealot for example, because you would be so squishy that the healing wouldn’t help you. What’s the point of healing when you get oneshotted and your health drops fast anyways?

Healing power doesn’t scale that well with many things and is poor with low toughness. On the other hand, high toughness can benefit from healing power as each health point recovered is worth more. But at the same time conditions would eat away at the guardian’s naturally low health pool and isn’t mitigated by toughness. Poison, in particular which reduces healing would be lethal.

It is however true that zealot’s gear does the 2nd most damage next to zerker (I’m just going to ignore assassin as it doesn’t really hold much relevance to guardians) since it is power primary which gives it an advantage over knights or cavalier, and beats valkyrie because that’s power/ferocity. So it’s a potential substitute for these things. For example, you could go soldier armor and instead of zerker trinkets/weapons, you could sacrifice some damage to go zealot weapons or something.

The final issue is finding things that actually scale with healing power and that tends to be the death of it. The primary forms of guardian self heal, altruistic healing and monk’s focus aren’t too hot with healing power. Regeneration, dodge heals, and mace attacks do, but that is pretty niche. All, and all healing power points to a group support guardians, as healing power improves group heals like selfless daring way more. In the end, I see more opportunities on zealot gear on my thief than my guardian…

TL;DR Zealot’s gear is possible as a supplementary addition on specific niche builds that have very high toughness/vit and would like a bit more damage, and have traits/skills that scale with healing. But in most general cases, I think you’re better off with something else.

So maybe something like this (just throwing crap out there):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASWlsApWoNDxVI8DNRCBl5M+P2fYFl4yAsAA-TVSBABBt/wZKBXVp3VKDOVXQlq/swhAQjrAAAPAgAAIAhNDAZAW2CA-w

or

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASWlsApWoNDxVI8DNRCRk1M2frpXHscA-TVSBABBt/wZKBXVp3VKDOVXQlq/swhAQjrAAAPAgAAIAhNDAZAW2CA-w

This would use energy sigils to perform tons of 800’ish as opposed to 400ish roflcopter heals and make use of battle presence. Damage isn’t half bad with 2k base power, defensive stats are a bit weak but not particularly squishy.

Another possibility is to sprinkle a little more survivability in a damage build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAsdRlsApcoVDxbI8DVR8gkjNVFAznJv+XwcA-TlSBABWqqSg7PQpaFrq0zMlgXpMAP9BLcIA04JAAwJAgMALbB-w

Not too happy with my theorycrafting, hopefully someone else can make use of it.

Speak for yourself.

I only have 5 characters after two years , and would eventually like one of each class, so I could use another scroll or two. I have one in my bank currently. Yes, once my later characters get a birthday, they’ll have useless scrolls. Big deal. It’s not my first day playing an RPG. 90% of loot is crap.

Just because it’s useless for you doesn’t mean it’s useless for other people. Just delete it if you think it’s useless.

They should probably turn it into just skill point scrolls on further birthdays, but that’s just me.

Any (non-condition gear) works fine as long as you’re not doing dungeons. PVT is great against world bosses such as teq that can’t be crit anyways.

I think the new account thing is definitely an issue, but it should be trivial if one earns the trust of the pugs anyways.

And I wouldn’t say world rank is completely irrelevant, even if it’s been diluted. The big commanders on my server are all relatively high rank (700+, though I guess they say so…) but definitely doubt there are sub-200 rank commanders that are common. Sure, sometimes a pvp pro will come on and beat me down when they only have invader rank, but truth be told I still take more caution when I encounter a Gold ranked engineer that comes straight at my thief I’ll consider that they may know what they’re doing. Still in any case, it’s still more indicative than having 100 extra gold. Exceptions abound everywhere.

It’s sort of like achievement points. You can’t really tell a 12k achievement player is better than a 2000 AP player. But there’s a good chance either is more experienced with a player with only 300 AP. Likewise a level 600 wlvl player may not be better than a level 200 player, but either has a chance to be more experienced than a wlvl 10 player. Note that we refer to experience, not skill.

But the fact is that a reknown commander will have followers regardless of level, and thus it really doesn’t hurt them since word of mouth is far stronger but sometimes you come back for a few months and just want to filter out doritos. I mean, sure a lot of it is just farming, but a experienced farmer who’s willing to have an icon to follow is all you need for various forms of blobbing. Sure, EOTM has many bad players that melt instantly in 1 second, but it’s not like it takes that much more skill to run around training in EBG either.

I like OP’s analogy to a high school diploma and work requirements. In this case, the commander is the applicant, and the followers are the employers. Many jobs require a high school diploma even though often you wouldn’t need to go to high school to have those skills. And at least in this country, having one really means little other than you showed up in school— more than 70% of people who attend will get one so it’s hardly anything special. There’s plenty of incapable people with diplomas, and plenty of very capable people who don’t have one due to circumstances. There’s certainly exceptions to every rule, but any capable person would be able to bypass them regardless. But it’s still used as a starting point to some degree, and instead of having the game decide for you, you can decide for yourself.

Galandil.9641:

DeathPanel.8362:

Your argument still doesn’t work since even in the worst case scenario (eotm farmer) someone with a ton of points earned that way will still be a better com than someone with like 10 rank points. (ie someone who’s completely new) This is because they’d still have more knowledge of how various siege machines or zerg battles work than someone completely new.

So even in the worst case scenario my idea would still work as a filter.

Not at all. The problem is not comparing a Rank 10 with a Rank 1000, the problem is comparing a Rank 500 (made only in EotM) to a Rank 250 (made only in WvW). The latter will have, on average, a much better understanding on how to command in WvW compared to the former.

This might actually be a useful reverse filter. If you were the rank 250 commander, and was discriminated in favor of a rank 500, chances are those potential followers are leeches/don’t know what they’re doing/don’t understand wvw and you might just have lost the rallybots. =p At least nobody sane and has experience in wvw would make a decision solely on that.

I think this is fair. Although wvw levels don’t mean much because of EOTM, it still means a lot more more than merely having 100g and some badges.

In the end, it doesn’t mean much and will generally be ignored, but yes I doubt a rank 15 can be a commander for sure. At the least it weeds out troll accounts. Even someone that just plays EOTM can understand how to lead a train, and stay together to stand in a circle. Also, when there’s no tag around, people are going to default to any tag anyways.

Also, if people wipe, I think they’ll stop following regardless of any titles =p

OP’s suggestion is far better than others that put arbitrary restrictions (ironically often involving a minimum rank) because it stops nobody from commanding if they have a tag but also serves as a tiny disincentive to those that just want to run around with a vanity tag.

Might of the Protector is actually pretty good with an AH build. You can get a few extra stacks of might with shelter, and the extra heal from the might proc is minor but typically guaranteed in most cases, making shelter a better heal.

Mace dps isn’t that bad. It still has no place in pve though. It’s good for kitten ing into zergs with skill no.3 on, lol.

Also, Signet of Judgement has AOE weakness on a low cooldown so it’s not really that selfish though certainly you could grab something else.

Sword can use tweaking, but it’s already a viable weapon everywhere except zerg content.

Most of it I agree with, especially wondering why Elusive Power even exists. Virtues and Zeal have so many useless traits.

Bravo to Anet for making things clear.

Also, I will run some more Blix before it gets patched. Thanks OP; without this thread I would have never known.

When you make changes to a large degree, then yes there needs to be some recognition of input.

Yes, people will take your statements out of context, they will make unreasonable demands, and they may never be happy.

But it has to be done to reach out to the reasonable people that remain.

All the shouts do look sorta creepy; I’m guessing they’re supposed to look really passionate screaming out shouts but it went overboard. As for the renewed focus face, I always thought it reminded me of that angry Protoss advisor icon from Brood War.

Sorry for not really being able to explain it but it also gives me an opportunity to make fun of “SAVE YOSELVES” since it is shout related. =p

Well, that’s pretty eye opening. How does it compare to wall of reflection?

PvE:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-DPS-Guardian-for-PVE/first

WvW:
Solo/duo (and sometimes small group): Meditation build (take all the meditation traits in Valor) and roll with something like x(usually sword)/focus/gs. Monk’s focus keeps you alive via Smite Condition spam. Focused Mind gets you fury. Get 1 pt in honor so you proc vigor on crit for more dodges. Gear is typically damage gear such as berserker/knight/valk mix if you feel too flimsy, which is not unreasonable. Some brave folks use all zerker, which I guess I’m just not good enough for. Traveler runes recommended due to mobility issues (traveler gives 25% movement speed), or the cheaper speed runes if you can’t afford.

A sample trait spread would be 2/1/6/1/4

In bigger fights, it’s best to take altruistic healing, (6 in valor) and equip stand your ground (for group stability). The way AH works is that you get healed every time you give out a boon, so hammer autoattack with its symbol of protection gives out a lot. But even simple things like the staff’s symbol of swiftness will heal you if people run over it. In any case it’s one of the guardian’s best self-sustain abilities.

As for the rest of your build, get a good source of condition clear (either pure of voice trait which removes condis pure shout cast + trooper runes which do the same or purging flames).

Weapons tend to be staff for support and a choice between Greatsword and Hammer with some niche builds taking mace, but gs/hammer are far more popular and simpler to use.

I also recommend picking up the valor traits “Strength in Numbers” (more toughness for you and your group) and Purity (1 condition removed every 10s), combined with AH these make survivability a lot easier.

The most basic trait spread for zerging is 0/1/6/6/1

Gearing for large scale typically is dominated by soldier gear (Power toughness vitality) due to the guardian’s naturally low health pool and soldier gear’s stat efficiency. For more damage, I’d say mix in berserker trinkets or weapons. Maximize power (because that’s the best stat for damage) and toughness (because having each point of health count for more means your heals are more effective), while keeping a comfortable health level. A typical benchmark I aim for is about 2000 power, 3000 armor, 25% crit chance, 16k health. Those don’t have to be exact (my current build has only 2900 armor so I make up for it with Str in Numbers), but that’s what I try to aim for.

If you moved shield of wrath over to shield, then I would just complain that focus sucks, lol.

In all seriousness, Shield of Wrath is there on the focus and what’s done is done. What it needs to do is NOT waste aegis when it blocks a hit, because that is just stupid.

Guardians aren’t underpowered. But IMO, they have serious QOL issues, and fighting in map size larger than half a city block proves too much. Clearly they don’t believe in walking and more about smashing things, making them the most American of all unlike the cowards that run away like thieves and warriors.*

*Is a joke. But the thief and warrior part is totally true.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

As someone who has played every class since 80, has everything in ascended gear & has done my fair share of wvw, pve & Spvp.

I’ll tell you one thing

The only thing the guardian does that the warrior doesn’t is apply protection.

Everything else (with the possible exception of condition removal) the warrior can do just as good if not better.

This means that generally speaking with the way WvW & Pve are designed the warrior is better because you cannot make up for stupid people being stupid.

Spvp on the other hand is where the differences come into play, they have more condition removal then warriors for their allies & themselves.
However they also have a much harder time staying on target & cannot burst anywhere nearly as effectively as a warrior.

Take from all this what you will.

I didn’t know warriors could reflect projectiles. That would require a serious nerf.

Granted a certain other class can do it better and I agree with a lot of the post, but just wanted to bring it up. =p Also, group stability.

It’s true that guardian doesn’t seem to do anything any other class could do better, but the rest tend to be missing something.

To be blunt, you won’t win 1v1 with staff involved. It’s a support weapon meant for group play. In addition scepter shots are strong, but easily dodged, so you will need another weapon to pressure/control your opponent.

Hmm, would it be better if Unscathed Contender worked like Scholar runes and did more damage above 90%?

Michaeas Magister.1589:

yLoon.5289:

I’ve played every class to lvl 80 except for Thief. I was like you before, but then i realized, Guardian is just so awesome. =D

My comments to you is : Please delete your Guardian ASAP or try other class and realized how ignorance you are.

Guardian Tips : Ring of Ward in the middle of gang fight.

Ah yes, Ring of Warding. Place it down and watch people dodge through it, leap through it, shadowstep or teleport through it, or just walk through it with stability.

It makes a pretty ring on the ground, but along with Line of Warding is mostly useless against anyone who can dodge.

Thanks.

No it isn’t. You act if dodges, shadowsteps, teleports, and stability are free, which they aren’t. It’s not hard to counter, but that doesn’t make it useless especially when you’re just using a mere weapon skill— and getting people to waste one of their dodges or stability on something like that is great. And how many control effects are negated by stability? And how many attacks period are negated by dodging or teleporting away? It doesn’t make them all useless. These particular counters can be used against the majority of abilities in the game.

In any case, they’re less likely to dodge something that actually hurts. The thing is also unblockable too, so it’s more of a deterrent to force people to counter it as opposed to flat out being countered by it, because it would be horrifically imbalanced if it couldn’t be countered.

It is kind of true in pve where many bosses just ignore control effects.

Hmm.

I would like it if the “prize of the month” as put forth by living story contain a randomly chosen armor piece, instead of a backpiece every time. I mean say you make 1 armor piece across the span of one living story chapter and another similarly themed item; and eventually make a whole set.

Also these pieces really should be ascended with pickable stats I say. Exotics are so out.

I will not buy any outfits; I don’t like this all or nothing thing. Sometimes I see an armor set and only think 1-2 pieces are worth using. I don’t mind using them only.

Staff will not help you in dungeons for the most part. Pick up a hammer and get protection.

Consider these to give you more dodges:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Energy
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowl_of_Meat_and_Winter_Vegetable_Stew

I think if they’re so opposed to cripple, that giving more chill would be proper (and glacial heart does not count)

Keksmuffin.1450:

ArchonWing.9480:

In WvW, the guardian’s low hp is partially mitigated due to the existence of guard stacks. Yes, everyone can get them, but because it’s a flat boost it benefits classes with low health a lot more.

Also, people have been threatening (across the boards) to reroll to warrior for the longest time but you get the same people going “reroll a warrior” repeatedly without progress. I didn’t know leveling took so long. Remember legendaries are account bound so you can move them.

Not targeted at anyone specifically. But given all the warriors I’ve seen as of late that get 1 pushed by my engie, I guess people really have been rerolling warrior— and it hasn’t helped them much. :p

Well most of these guys want the stuff warrior has for guards… cripple, movement speed, more movement skills, bigger hp pool. Going warrior seems more logical than keeping to play guard and keeping to complain. Let them reroll, I won’t miss them.

I prefer active defenses and active support even on zerker specs over being a facetank hp bag which only support is ccing stuff, killing something before it kills their teammates and sometimes a warbanner.

There’s definitely nothing wrong with wanting something else. Personally, I rerolled from necro to guardian because at that time the class was complete crap. Sure I complained, but when I said I’d reroll, I just simply did it. But when you see the same people go for months on end talking about reaching warrior heaven, I’m like “what’s stopping you” lol. Ascended gear is account bound, you get level 20 scrolls and booster for your birthday, and leveling jeweler/chef is 14 levels.

I’ve also rolled other classes when I felt dissatisfied with guardian. Thief, ranger, engineer. I never rolled a warrior, but I have the chance to try it out at a friend’s house whenever for lols. In the end, I’m always back home over here and say to myself “Well, at least I’m not a ranger” :p

And what do you know; the necro’s in far better shape then it was a year ago, though definitely a long way to go. Still somewhat fun to play, no point in being so bitter sometimes.

In WvW, the guardian’s low hp is partially mitigated due to the existence of guard stacks. Yes, everyone can get them, but because it’s a flat boost it benefits classes with low health a lot more.

Also, people have been threatening (across the boards) to reroll to warrior for the longest time but you get the same people going “reroll a warrior” repeatedly without progress. I didn’t know leveling took so long. Remember legendaries are account bound so you can move them.

Not targeted at anyone specifically. But given all the warriors I’ve seen as of late that get 1 pushed by my engie, I guess people really have been rerolling warrior— and it hasn’t helped them much. :p

I find the self-righteous ones that trail these things to be even worse.

If you like the class, keep playing. They’re fine in pve and small scale wvw. I think they’ll be fine in large scale after the next patch though yea not the best, but honestly it doesn’t really matter.

Megastorm.6219:

If spirit weapons were immune to attacks for their duration, and there were two new buttons I could press to make them spread out, follow, or attack target, then I might get excited.
I do look forward to any improvements to guardian of course, and I’m in no way feeling kitten before I see the actual updates.

They’re probably not going to make them immune; that’s going to lead to a lot of complaining regardless if it’s good or not.

They do need to make them much sturdier as in “not melt in 0.1 seconds to incidental damage” so a big buff is needed.

You’re comparing fully traited meditations against untraited shouts… and also meditations only affect yourself.

?
I’m guessing you only pvp and/or roam wvw? Since meditations aren’t too hot anywhere else.

There’s only 1 meditation skill with a low cooldown, and that is smite condition.

OP,

Consider a condition build. I’m no pro at small scale necros, but even those things let a nub like me get kills. Epidemic is awesome for clearing camps too. =p It’s easier to spec tanky as a condi build, and as a necro in group fights, they will definitely try to beat you down.

I do something like this though I have full rabid (would rather switch to dire when I have the time):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNArYWjc00dbxN+2wfbighS6WoD+gobgA4cp6LA-T1yAwAWUCi4QAI5EAAw0XM9BgVGoc/Bjq/s5BAw5IA8UpHpAgZOA-w

Just load them up with your scepter condis, and cast epidemic whenever. Abuse the crap out of DS 3 fear.

In 1v1s, I’ve actually just feared people to death after they blow away all their stability; but small group play is a bit different— with people to hold them down, it’s much easier to get your stuff off though watch out when they decide that they should target you.

Corrupt boon is awesome if you can fit in here too… you can definitely toss away either spectral skill; but I just like them for survival and utility.

Tome of Courage is more situational than renewed focus, but it can be very powerful in certain cases when used right. Obviously if you use it like you use renewed focus, you will get rolled. You don’t use ToC to save yourself from spikes; you use it to save your allies so the positioning is completely different. Though I’ve only found success with it in large scale wvw where I am less likely to get targeted. Frankly, one could argue strongly in favor of ToC; I mean renewed focus is a mere 2 seconds of invul every 90 seconds— is that worth giving up a massive burst heal? Chances are if your allies are dead, you will die anyways.

However, if you’re speaking about healway that takes 6 into virtues and takes absolute resolution/indomitable courage then I’d say Renewed Focus wins because those two traits are pretty bad without it due to the long cooldowns. So ironically, I’d say ToC works better an AH 6 valor build that doesn’t go deep into the virtues and is also able to take a bigger beating. But again, it’s hard to speak in absolutes.

Marks are trivial to dodge but the cooldowns are so short (especially mark of blood) it doesn’t really matter that much; getting people to waste their dodges is good anyways. There’s also nothing to stop you from casting marks directly on people.

I think what brings the staff down is that lame looking and sounding autoattack. Yea, they tried changing it once to make it less lame, but it hasn’t really worked.

Not too impressed; details are what matters.

Two targets? That’s so stingy lol, but whatever.

I’d imagine a boost to spectral armor since that thing has such a hilariously long cooldown. I bet they’re gonna like buff signet of locust leech or something silly though. =p

I’m also going to guess they’re going to put 1s of stability on a random utility and deem it adequate.

Engineer down state is plain awful; almost like it’s not there. Thief has a good one, and ranger is pretty good, and infamously annoying underwater.

Necro downstate isn’t that great, though the leech can actually win those oh so rare downed wars or if your enemy has a sliver of health left when they down you.

It’s the combination of a lack of escape skills plus a so-so down state that makes it frustrating to play a necro when things have gone south.

There’s no real standard build because engineers aren’t meta for zerging but you can certainly make something work.

Here’s a truly braindead frontline bomb-heal build; it’s very easy to play and I use it when I’m lazy: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUp+q9Zx6KseNiaBNqzE6MG1AI6PmlqA-TFTAABJpE7HVMKa/BeUH5UVC2S5BAmgYRHwDPAALUCygJGPuAAkBoYLA-w

It’s easier on the hands; bombs still do decent damage (2k crit with reasonable access to fury) and you are extraordinarily hard to kill; you also don’t have the retaliation issue you have with grenades. And you heal allies. Toss Elixir B is kinda crap but it’s the only kind of stability so w/e. Also don’t forget about Rifle 3; it’s great point blank. There’s really not much to say. Just run with the front of the zerg, bomb autos. With elixir B and other people casting swiftness on you, you have no end to vigor so keep dodging as needed. Pretty much everything slides off you, and even if it doesn’t, just run away with elixir S. I didn’t bother with any cleric gear so you could definitely get bigger heals; but I felt the base was good enough and didn’t feel like sacrificing damage.

More traditional grenade lobber build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUp+qlYxdLseNybBNquI6Kexn85AE0hC-TFTAABJpE7HVMKa/BeUH5UVC2S5BAmgYRHwDPAALUCygJGPuAAkBoYLA-w

You generally don’t want to lob your grenades from max range if you can help it. Strafe people with grenades and don’t stray too far away. As tempting as it is, I’d recommend against tossing into them when they stack up and buff because you may kill yourself with retaliation. Flash in elixir gun to clear condis on allies; spam your heals. Use no.4 to get yourself out of trouble.

For gw2skills, you have to select the 3rd icon on the upper right (pve mode), but I guess it can be hard to navigate on a mobile device.

Personally, I’d remove 1 point from both spite (that minor trait is not very good) and curses and put it into death magic to grab the ritual of protection (wells give protection) trait. You could also try moving 1 pt from spite to curses to get chilling darkness for your well of darkness (good on trash mobs), or 1 pt from curses to spite to pick up close to death which will be a more consistent dps increase than furious demise.

Also replace Ritual of Life for transfusion for a decent ally heal. If you want a trait that helps you and your allies, consider mark of evasion.

Perma fury is nice, but do consider you’ll have 85% fury uptime without the food.

And yea, I didn’t factor in allies dying as life force. That’s probably why my LF meter is always full. :S

They’re both good offhands.

Warhorn has the daze but note that the enemy frequently has stability on first approach so shooting it off immediately is not a good idea. Later on though it’s quite nice. And yes, locust swarm does heavy damage as your train runs through people and can be good with plague especially if you take chilling darkness (use the 2nd one always).

Dagger off has a condi transfer and also a blind with skill 4, also good with chilling darkness, and an aoe weakness which is solid too though I find these a little hard to land. Weakness is not as a common condition as others and also helps you immediately by blunting the blows of the enemy’s next attack; so it doesn’t matter if it gets cleansed.

Focus offhand is alright too, but I think the long cast time makes it very hard to use. Skill 5 is strong but only single target and skill 4 can be useful, though I don’t think it makes that much of a difference as opposed to the other two.

That’s a very balanced build with great stats. That little furious demise trait can allow for some decent bursts without having to take death perception. Do you feel like you are missing anything? Can you manage being condition spammed?

I think you should exchange 1 point from death to curses to grab ground wells though or if that’s not your thing since I don’t want to argue that again :p, weakening shroud is pretty sweet too considering you have Near to Death— Weakness is a nice condition that necros can provide as opposed to poison and bleed that fly around everywhere. Soul Comprehension is not a bad thing to have, but you’ll get more out of your plague and dagger 4. The thing about “on death” traits is that they are a snowball thing meaning they tend to work the most in fights you’re already winning and you should have tons of LF from SR. If you don’t like your DS is generating fast enough, take vital persistence to slow down decay.

I don’t really think the boon food is worth it. IMO it’s only worth taking when you have enough group boons like on a guardian which spit them out constantly to everyone. Yes, you get more swiftness but you already have pack runes, and you can squeeze a bit more out of FITG, but IMO you’d be best served taking toughness/vit food or -condi food. Also, swiftness is pretty common on zergs, so you don’t need perfect swiftness uptime though I understand that travel on a necro can be pretty painful.

Have any of you come up with builds anticipating the new patch?

I use moa/spider and occasionally a drake. The former offers me protection, and is mostly just swapped in— I don’t let it attack mostly. Usually I let the spider range and stay out of trouble.

PVE is about zerker anyways, so in other places…

The basic idea is toughness with a smaller health pool takes advantage of heals better. Each unit of health is worth more and because it’s hard to drastically increase your healing skill as opposed to your other stats is why toughness can be really strong. But it depends on what you want.

EHP, Vitality factoring in toughness, is basically factoring your ability to take masses of damage. Basically, if you stand still and take a beating or get bursted by a big heat, having a high EHP will save you. But over longer fights, your ability to replenish that bulb is determined by your effective healing. My point here is that you can actually be sturdy (able to absorb mass damage) but not actually tanky (be long lasting) and vice versa.

Speaking of EHP, rangers start out with 1980 armor (assuming exotics) and about 15k health. 10 extra health (1 vitality point) out of 15000 provides a bigger % boost than 1 extra toughness point out of 1980 armor. BTW, this is where people get that 10:1 thing. If your stats were 20k health and 2k armor, then increasing either by the same % would have an equal effect on total ehp. Not that I’d recommend you do such. But what we see here is the first points in vitality do have a distinct impact so it can’t be neglected totally.

So it really depends on what you want. Do you want to just be able to use a large buffer to absorb damage (more suited for damage oriented builds) while you take the enemy down, or do you want to win through attrition (more bunker)?

This is of course made further complicated by the deadliness of conditions, in particular poison which destroys your healing. If your condition removal is weak, then just going healing/toughness would give yourself a lot of trouble. On the other hand if you have healing spring, signet of renewal and empathetic bond (along with the easy protection of the WS tree), then investing in toughness is a very profitable venture. At this point you just have to figure out if your health buffer is enough to take a burst hit.

On the other hand say, you’re a glassy gs/bow ranger with a lot of zerker on. You’re not built to last. If you try to pad out your limited defensive stats and traits with toughness, then there’s a good chance bursts and conditions may eat you. Randomly putting in healing power pieces aren’t going to help either. If you want some survival as opposed to full zerker, padding in some valkyrie so you don’t just get randomly downed in 0.5 s will be of great help. Fitting in soldier pieces of course isn’t bad either.

If you’re a condition build, then you usually have to kill people over time. The strength of condi builds is their incredible attrition, so wearing dire (condi, toughness, vitality)/apoth (healing, toughness, condi) will make people rage at you, and for good reason.

Finally, in group play where heals and condi removal are common I find that toughness is easier to gravitate to. For example, if I’m running traited signet of stone, where I’ll be able to freely heal myself and be healed during that duration, toughness helps more, assuming if I didn’t die already. In very larger groups, such as zerg plays, then the bigger threat is from direct damage and toughness would win there too provided you position yourself intelligently. Yea, I know rangers aren’t adept at zerging, but hopefully the balance patch will shake things up a bit.

tl;dr Health is better at first, and then when you have enough, toughness helps more and healing power is the frosting.

Yea it doesn’t really make much sense that elixir traits do not affect the elixir gun. Granted, you don’t actually drink them, but you don’t drink the tossed elixirs either.

For grenades, the default casting is terrible. In options I set it to fast cast with ground indicator, so that you toss grenades where your mouse is instead of clicking so much and being slow.

Grenades need traits to be good, and given the trait system I would say bombs are definitely the better choice. I’d go for med kit, bomb kit, rocket boots, and maybe a turret to make things easy. Elixir B is another solid choice due to the buffs and swiftness. You definitely want tons of swiftness as when leveling, more speed means you visit places faster, and gain more exploration XP, as well as being able to do events and hearts faster. Don’t get yourself too wound up over hearts though. Do them if they’re convenient or if it’s a zone you want to complete. Personally, I like to complete Queensdale and Wayfarer Foothills as those are straightforward. Look for events that are near a heart— chances are it’ll help do the heart and let you gain 2 sources of xp at once.

Also, I’d go with the rifle forthe direct damage. The jump shot can also assist you with leaps.

I’m generally a big fan of melandru due the stun and condi duration reduce, but the other two are quite strong if you know how to take advantage of them. Hoelbrak is an offensive set and trooper is great for 3x shout builds.

Heh, that caption with “you heal yourself by 400 with healing signet” pretty much describes everything to indicate necros are nowhere near the tankiest. Necros can certainly withstand the punishment and yes have lots of EHP, but lack the tools for attrition (good healing, damage mitigation and/or avoidance, counters to CC, etc). Of course, that didn’t need concrete proof, but I guess it could help.

By no means do I think necros are bad at survival, but in terms of attrition people certainly overstate it. On the other hand a lot of people go “omfg 2nd life bar” without understanding a thing so I doubt they’ll change their minds.